• Laboratory: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants!

    Cecilia Payne and the Composition of the Stars
    https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/curriculum-collections/cosmic-horizons-book/cecilia-payne-profile
    "There is no joy more intense than that of coming upon a fact that cannot be understood in terms of currently accepted ideas." —Cecilia Payne

    1. What were some obstacles that Cecilia Payne had to endure and overcome throughout her career?
      • Cecilia Payne lived when there was a lot of prejudice against women.
      • She completed her degree at Cambridge University, England, but was not awarded her degree because she was a woman!
      • She moved to Harvard, Massachusetts, to complete her PhD and discovered that the Universe was almost entirely hydrogen and helium! This contradicted the scientific consensus, and Professor Henry Norris Russel stated that her thesis was "almost certainly not real." Russell thought the stars were made of the same elements found on Earth.
      • Her system for decoding stars' light spectra permanently changed how stars’ spectra are interpreted.
        However, she did not receive credit for the pivotal discovery; rather, her advisor, Russell, would later claim credit, thus garnering his name on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram.
      • Cecilia spent the next 30 years working at Harvard but was not allowed to be a professor and was only considered a "technical assistant" again because she was a woman.
      • It was not until 30 years after her discovery that she was finally made a full professor and chair of the Harvard Astronomy Department.
      • Russell finally admitted that Cecilia Payne's thesis was correct, and ironically, she was awarded the Henry Norris Russell Prize in 1976!

    Do you think that there is still misogyny and sexist prejudice in today's world?

    2. Name three other scientists and their discoveries that led Cecilia Payne to her discoveries. 

      • Einstein's Theory of General Relativity
      • Kirchhoff and Bunsen discovered that each element gives off a specific spectral fingerprint.
      • Huggins discovered that many of these fingerprints of elements were found in the spectra of stars.
      • Annie Jump Cannon discovered that stars could be classified into seven groups (OBAFGKM).
      • Saha determined how the temperature and pressure in the atmosphere of a star determine its color.

    3. How would the statement “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants” apply to Cecilia Payne’s life story? 
    Use evidence from the text to support your answer.

      • Standing on the shoulders of giants means "discovering truth by building on previous discoveries."
      • Standing on the shoulders of giants allows one to see further and discover more profound more complex mysteries!
      • For Cecilia Payne to discover the universe's composition, all those previous scientists must have made their "Giant" revelations! 

    Hertzsprung-Russell diagram

    Your last Edpuzzle explained the H-R Diagram!

    Part 1 Directions:
    Carefully plot the following stars on the blank H-R diagram page. 
    Label the dots you plot with the row number from the chart below.

    star_groupings1

    4. What is the general relationship between the temperature of a star and its luminosity?

      • As the temperature of a star increases, its luminosity increases.
      • As the temperature of a star decreases, its luminosity decreases.
      • Note: this applies only to stars on the Main Sequence (90% of all stars). 

    5. List the stars that do not follow that relationship.

      • #1 Antares
      • #4 Aldebaran
      • #5 Sirus B
      • #7 Polaris
      • #9 Betelgeuse
      • #13 Procyon B

    Vocabulary

    • Giant – a highly luminous, exceptionally massive star.
      • A giant star forms when a main sequence star runs out of hydrogen in its core, causing the core to shrink. The core begins to burn helium, which is hotter than burning hydrogen. This added heat causes the outside of the star to expand.
      • After a giant forms, its outer layers may expand and cool, causing the star to glow bright red. 
        These giants are known as red giants.
    • H-R diagram – a graphical plot showing the relationship between a star’s luminosity and surface temperature.
      • H-R diagrams classify stars and show how stars change over time.
    • Luminosity – the brightness of an object that gives off light, such as a star.
      • To determine a star’s luminosity, astronomers compare a star’s apparent brightness in the night sky with how far away the star is from Earth.
    • Main sequence – a star in a stable, middle stage of its development.
      • Over 90 percent of the stars in the known universe are main-sequence stars.
      • The Sun is a main sequence star.
    • Star – a celestial body composed of hot gases that radiate energy, including light and heat.
      • A star’s energy comes from nuclear fusion, a process in which two hydrogen atoms join to form a helium atom.
    • Supergiant – a very bright star that is usually larger and more massive than a giant star.

    • White dwarf – a small, dense, faint star.
      • White dwarfs form near the end of a star’s life cycle when the outer layers of a giant are shed, leaving a dense oxygen-carbon core behind.

    Standing on the Shoulders of Invisible Giants By Eman M. Elshaikh

    houldersofgiants

    When Newton spoke of standing on the shoulders of giants, he was talking about collective learning—our species’ unique ability to share, preserve, and build upon knowledge over time. It’s a key part of what makes us human. Our creative abilities depend on learning from the work of others—just like Newton did. You rely on collective learning when you learn by reading a book or listening to your teacher. When you use these ideas in a school project, you make your own contribution to collective learning by sharing your ideas with others. In that way, you become a part of the chain of collective learning.
    Sometimes it’s easy to see how collective learning moves from one thinker to another, or one community to another. For example, we know that the great astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus directly influenced two other famous astronomers: Galileo Galilei and Johannes Kepler. If we think of Copernicus as a giant, we can say that Galileo and Kepler stood on his shoulders to reach greater heights. And our friend Newton stood on their shoulders to reach even higher. These thinkers lived in different times and places, but we can imagine collective learning as a kind of conversation they had across time and distance. They might never have met, but the transfer of their ideas across time and space allowed science theories to be built, questioned, and refined.
    6. According to the text above,
    Explain what "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants" means
      • Standing on the shoulders of giants means "discovering the truth by building on previous discoveries."
    7. According to " Standing on the Shoulders of Invisible Giants" reading above.
    How do methods of science overcome our human fallibility?
    • If we have learned anything from this struggle, it may be that individuals and institutions are filled with human flaws.
    • Eventually, those inequities can be exposed and overcome through the struggles and perseverance of people like Annie Jump Cannon and Cecilia Payne.
    • These brilliant women in science have paved the way for a brighter future!
    Please entertain this hypothetical.
    Mona_Lisa
    Imagine if you would that Leonardo da Vinci never existed. We would never have seen his great works of art if he never existed. Those artworks we consider masterpieces today would never have existed. Entirely different people would make the things we admire, and their masterpieces would look completely different.
    Imagine that our great artists, musicians, military leaders, and even your favorite singer were never born. 
     
    The world would consist of different artists, different countries, different creative works that we would consider masterpieces, and different people you may admire for entirely different reasons!
     
    Science is a distinctly unusually different venture!
     
    But what if all the "Giants" in science were never to have been born?
    No Sir Issac Newton, no Einstein, Mozart, Annie Jump Cannon, or Cecilia Payne.
    All those same scientific discoveries will eventually come back. Their beauty shines through their enlightened vision!
    Of course, other people would have discovered those bits of reality, and all those bits would build upon each other. Unlike our history books or great works of art, science books will eventually be filled with the same discoveries as we uncover those treasures of the truth behind the nature of the Universe! Of course, different people would make those discoveries.
     
    Science is like treasure hunting for truth!
    We are all bottled up by our perceptions.
    jar1a
     
    This is a significant philosophical difference between the motivation and meaning behind Cecilia's statement: "There is no joy more intense than that of coming upon a fact that cannot be understood in terms of currently accepted ideas." —Cecilia Payne
    jar_final
    There is always so much more to discover!
    8. Which numbered star is plotted in the wrong place?
    Compare your H-R diagram with my plotted points below. One number is incorrect.

    one_wrong
    Number 7 is plotted incorrectly.
    9. These stars are all plotted correctly, and their relative sizes and groupings are shown. 
    In what way is this graph showing incorrect information? Explain.
     
    h-r_diagram_new_colored
    The colors of the stars are completely messed up!
    The color scheme should follow the colors shown on the x-axis relating to temperature.
    Mistakes like this can lead to misconceptions instead of supporting the data supported by Annie Jump Cannon's observations and Cecilia Payne's discovery! 
    10. Order the following stars from coolest to hottest.
     
    starsabc
    Blue stars are the hottest, and red stars are the coolest, with white stars in between.
    This was also a hint for the previous question.
    The correct answer is: star B, star A, star C
     
    11. What does a higher temperature tend to go with for most stars?

    Higher temperature stars are more blue, massive, and luminous on the Main Sequence. 

    12. For a standard H-R diagram, what are the stars in the lower left region of the diagram? 
     
    White Dwarf stars

    13. In what way do Stars on the upper left end of the main sequence differ from those on the lower right end? 
     
    h-r-diagram-colored1
    The upper left end of the Main Sequence is much hotter and brighter than the lower right end.
     
    14.  How do white dwarfs compare with supergiants in terms of temperature and luminosity?
     
    White Dwarf stars are hotter and less luminous than Supergiant stars.
     
    15. Annie Jump Cannon developed this classification for stars.
     
    obafgkm
     
    What discovery was made because of her classification system?
     
    She discovered that the color of a star is a scale of the star's temperature.
    https://www.visionlearning.com/en/library/scientists-and-research/58/cecilia-payne/290